Part 9 (2/2)
Indeed, it is stated in what is called ”The Portuguese Narrative” of these events, that Porcallo and De Soto had already quarrelled so decisively that they were no longer on speaking terms. Porcallo, thoroughly dest.i.tute of moral principle, was a slave hunter; a character whom De Soto thoroughly despised, and whose operations he would not on any account allow to be carried on in his army. Porcallo therefore found no difficulty in obtaining permission to retire from the service. Probably both the governor and his lieutenant were equally happy to be rid of each other.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER X.
_The March to Ochile._
The March Commenced.--The Swamps of Florida.--Pa.s.sage of the Mora.s.s.--Heroism of Sylvestre.--Message to Acuera.--His Heroic Reply.--Fierce Hostility of the Indians.--Enter the Town of Ocali.--Strange Incident.--Death of the Bloodhound.--Historical Discrepancies.--Romantic Entrance to Ochile.
The day after the departure of Porcallo, a courier from Captain Gallegos, accompanied by a small guard, came to the Spanish camp at Ucita. He informed De Soto that there was an ample supply of provisions at Uribaracaxi to sustain the army for several days; and that he had received information that at not a great distance from that place large quant.i.ties of gold could be obtained. De Soto and his companions were greatly elated by these tidings, trusting that they were about to enter upon another Peru. A garrison of forty hors.e.m.e.n and eighty foot soldiers, was left at Ucita, to protect the military and commissariat stores collected there, and to guard the three vessels still remaining in the bay. Captain Calderon, who was left in command, was strictly enjoined to treat the Indians with the utmost kindness, and not to make war upon them, even if provoked by taunts and insults.
De Soto, then, with the main body of his army, set out on the march for Uribaracaxi. It was soon very evident to him that he was not in Peru. There was no smoothly-paved highway for his soldiers to traverse. The country was pathless, rough, apparently uninhabited, enc.u.mbered with tangled forests, and vast dismal swamps. It was a very arduous enterprise for soldiers burdened with heavy armor to force their way through such a wilderness, with the baggage essential to such a body of men.
One of the great objects of the governor, and a humane one, was to establish a colony in Florida. A herd of three hundred swine was kept in the line of march, as these animals were deemed the most advantageous stock for new settlers. After a toilsome march of two days they reached the native village of Mucozo, where the friendly chief of the same name resided. It is said that this place is now called Hichipuchsa.s.sa. The chief received them with great hospitality.
Pressing on without delay, they soon reached Uribaracaxi, which town it is supposed was situated near the head of the Hillsborough river, which stream empties into Tampa Bay. The chief was still absent, in his place of refuge, amidst the fastnesses of the forest. All of De Soto's friendly endeavors to draw him from his retreat proved unavailing. The Spaniards were yet to traverse many leagues of this unknown country before they could enter the region where it was supposed the gold could be found.
Florida is emphatically a region of swamps. There is probably no section of our country which, in a state of nature, would be more difficult for the pa.s.sage of an army. About nine miles from the village, directly on their line of march, extending far away to the east and the west, there was a vast bog three miles wide. It was a chaotic region of mud and water, with gigantic trees and entangling roots. After long search a pa.s.sage was found through which, by the toilsome efforts of a whole day, the army forced its way. Beyond the swamp there opened before them a smooth, luxuriant flower-enamelled prairie. Rejoicingly the army pressed forward over this beautiful expanse, when suddenly they found their steps again arrested by a series of sluggish streams, stagnant bayous, and impenetrable bogs.
De Soto now took a hundred horse and a hundred foot soldiers, and leaving the remainder of the army safely encamped, set out to explore the country in search of a practicable route of travel. For three days he skirted the region of bogs, lakes and thickets, sending out his runners in different directions to find some outlet. But there was no outlet for the journeyings of civilized men. They captured some Indians, who offered to guide them, but who treacherously led them to more difficult pa.s.ses and into ambushes where many of their horses were slain. The dreadful punishment of these false guides was to be torn to pieces by bloodhounds. They bore their sufferings with amazing fort.i.tude.
At length they found a very rude, difficult and dangerous path by which the Indians crossed these swamps. At one point, where the water could not be forded for a distance of nearly three hundred feet, the Indians had constructed a bridge by cutting down two large trees and uniting the s.p.a.ce that still remained between them in this Stygian lake, by tying logs together, with cross-poles for flooring. To add to the embarra.s.sments of the Spaniards, apparently innumerable small bands of Indians were hovering on their track, a.s.sailing them with their sharp-pointed arrows, wherever they could get a shot, and then escaping into the impenetrable region around. They were very careful never to come to an open conflict. Canoes, propelled by the paddle, would often dart out from the thickets, a shower of arrows be discharged, and the canoes disappear where no foot could follow them.
A very bold courier, on one of the fleetest horses, was sent back to summon the main body of the army to march, under the command of Moscoso, and join the party of explorers which De Soto had led. This young man, by the name of Sylvestre, accomplished his feat through a thousand perils and hair-breadth escapes.
Three days De Soto's band had pa.s.sed struggling through bog and brake, bramble and forest. Sylvestre was to find his path back travelling with all possible speed by night as well as by day. One attendant only was with him, Juan Lopez. They never could have found their path but through the sagacity of their horses. These n.o.ble animals seemed to be endowed for the time with the instinct of setter dogs. For in the darkness of the night they would puff and snort, with their noses close to the ground, ever, under the most difficult circ.u.mstances, finding the track. The distance over which they urged their horses exceeded thirty miles. For three days the poor creatures had not been unsaddled, and the bits had but occasionally been removed from their mouths that they might enjoy the brief refreshment of grazing.
”At times,” writes Mr. Irving, ”they pa.s.sed within sight of huge fires, around which the savages were stretched in wild fantastic groups, or capering and singing, and making the forests ring with yells and howlings. These were probably celebrating their feasts with war-dances. The deafening din they raised was the safeguard of the two Spaniards, as it prevented the savages noticing the clamorous barking of their dogs, and hearing the tramping of the horses as they pa.s.sed.”[C]
[Footnote C: Conquest of Florida, p. 89.]
Immediately on the arrival of these two bold troopers, Moscoso dispatched supplies for the governor with an escort of thirty hors.e.m.e.n. In the mean time the troops under De Soto were nearly peris.h.i.+ng with hunger. They were compelled to leave their encampment in search of food. Fortunately, at no great distance, they found a beautiful valley, waving luxuriantly with fields of corn or maize.
Here they encamped and here were soon joined by the escort and their welcome supplies. In a few days Moscoso came also with the residue of the army. They were about sixty miles north of Uribaracaxi. It is supposed the place is now known by the old Indian name of Palaklikaha.
The chief, whose name was Acuera, and all his people had fled to the woods. De Soto sent Indian interpreters to him with friendly messages and the declaration that the Spaniards had no desire to do him any injury; but that it was their power, if the Indians resisted, to punish them with great severity. He also commissioned them to make the declaration, which to him undoubtedly seemed perfectly just and reasonable, but which, to our more enlightened minds, seems atrocious in the extreme, that it was their only object to bring him and his people into obedience to their lawful sovereign, the king of Spain.
With this end in view, he invited the chief to a friendly interview.
It can hardly be doubted that in that benighted age De Soto felt that he was acting the part of a just and humane man, and of a Christian, in extending the _Christian_ reign of Spain over the heathen realms of Florida. Acuera returned the heroic reply:
”Others of your accursed race have, in years past, poisoned our peaceful sh.o.r.es. They have taught me what you are. What is your employment? To wander about like vagabonds from land to land; to rob the poor; to betray the confiding; to murder in cold blood the defenceless. With such a people I want no peace--no friends.h.i.+p. War, never-ending, exterminating war, is all the boon I ask. You boast yourself valiant; and so you may be, but my faithful warriors are not less brave; and this, too, you shall one day prove, for I have sworn to maintain an unsparing conflict while one white man remains in my borders; not openly, in battle, though even thus we fear not to meet you, but by stratagem, and ambush, and midnight surprisals. I am king in my own land, and will never become the va.s.sal of a mortal like myself. As for me and my people, we choose death, yes a hundred deaths, before the loss of our liberty and the subjugation of our country.”
This answer certainly indicates a degree of intelligence and mental culture far above what we should expect to find in the chief of a tribe of Florida Indians. The chivalric spirit of De Soto compelled him to admire the heroism it displayed. He consequently redoubled his efforts to gain the friends.h.i.+p of the chief, but all in vain. For twenty days De Soto remained in this encampment, recruiting his troops and making arrangements for a farther advance. The Indians made constant warfare upon him, lurking in the thickets which densely surrounded his camp. No Spaniard could wander one hundred steps without danger of being shot down by an invisible foe, whose deadly arrow was more noiseless in its flight than the sighing of the breeze through the tree tops. In this way, during these twenty days, fourteen Spaniards were killed and many more wounded. Fifty Indians also fell struck by the bullets of the invaders. De Soto allowed himself only in a war of self-defence. He strictly prohibited his followers from doing any injury to the villages or the property of the natives, or of engaging in the slightest act of violence towards any who were not in active hostility against them.
After twenty days of such repose as could be found in this war hara.s.sed camp, De Soto resumed his march. He directed the steps of his army in a northeasterly direction towards a town called Ocali, about sixty miles from their encampment. It seems that in most, if not all of this region, the chief and his princ.i.p.al town bore the same name.
The path of the army led just over a dreary expanse of desert sands, about thirty miles broad. There was no underbrush, and over the smooth surface both men and horses could travel with the greatest ease. They then entered upon a beautiful region of fertility and luxuriance.
Fields of corn waved their graceful leaves and bannered heads in the breeze. Farm houses and pleasant villages were scattered around, indicating that peace, with its nameless blessings, reigned there.
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